You Can't Have a War Without Soldiers"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." ~ Voltaire
Critics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of U.S. military escapades in general are often inconsistent. Although they may denounce warmongering politicians, senseless foreign wars, the warfare state, the military-industrial complex, U.S. foreign policy, foreign military bases, and the destruction of civil liberties during wartime, they us... (more)
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Without Government, Who Will Block The Roads? One question that libertarians and anarchists never stop hearing is "without government, who will build the roads?" Given Bridge-Gate — an intentionally manufactured traffic jam on New Jersey's George Washington Bridge — one might ask "without government, who will block the roads?"
The scandal emerged after four grueling days of inexplicably awful traffic turned out to be the deliberate doing of G... (more)
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Why Does Rand Paul Want to Imprison Edward Snowden?Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has announced his intention to file a class action lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its illegal eavesdropping program. An earlier suit filed by the group Judicial Watch resulted in a temporary injunction from federal district court Judge Richard Leon, who described the program as “almost Orwellian.” A seco... (more)
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Larken Rose Explains Why The State Is An Unnessecary Evil
Larken Rose explains how problems can be solved without a parasitic ruling class.
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Remembering AaronOne year ago, we lost Aaron Swartz, a dear friend and a leader in the fight for a free and open Internet. The shock was, and remains, a profound one. It's a testament to the power of his commitments and ideals that both in life and in death he has inspired millions around the world, including all of us at EFF, to redouble our own efforts to advance the causes that he believed in, and to untangle the twisted and brutal comp... (more)
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To Be Governed Is to Be Controlled"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon articulated that in 1851. Would he be surprised at just how far-reaching the surveillance state and prison-industrial complex now reaches, a century and a half later? I doubt it. Even ... (more)
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Privatizing Diplomacy, Dennis Rodman StyleThe verdict is in: All civilized people must hate Dennis Rodman. Politicians from John McCain to John Kerry and pundits from Bill O'Reilly to Chris Matthews are outraged that an American would visit the third member of the Axis of Evil. Earlier this week Rodman, along with six fellow former NBA players, arrived in Pyongyang, playing an exhibition basketball game against a team of North Koreans. The game took place as part of Kim Jong Un's birthday celebration. The politicians and pundits are ag... (more)
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The Fall of the RepublicFor nearly five centuries, Res Publica Romana—the Roman Republic—bestowed upon the world a previously unseen degree of respect for individual rights and the rule of law. When the republic expired, the world would not see those wondrous achievements again on a comparable scale for a thousand years.
In print and from the podium, I have addressed the calamitous economic policies that ate away the vitals of Roman society. I’ve emphasized that no people who lost their chara... (more)
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Pat Buchanan, Drugs, and Conservative Love for Big GovernmentA few decades hence, when drug prohibition is, like alcohol prohibition, an amusing byword for destructive, overweening, and failed government policy, we’ll look back and see the War on Drugs as just another socialistic disaster of the twentieth century, which Ralph Raico calls “the century of statism.”
The War on Drugs and drug prohibition is of course an artifact of the 20th century with all its totalitarianism, central planning, socialism, and wars, both metaphorical and litera... (more)
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Contraceptives for Nuns? Government at Its Most AbsurdHow absurd can a law be, to force nuns (who have taken vows of both poverty and celibacy) to explain to the state why they don't want to pay for contraception? That requirement was too much for Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who issued a temporary injunction against Obamacare's mandate that health plans must cover contraception.
I am not s... (more)
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Total Privacy = Total Destruction Of The StateThe state cannot exist without invasions of privacy. Without invasions of privacy, taxes could not be imposed. If all transactions and accounting records were private, incomes and revenues could not be verified. Tax evasion could not be prosecuted because no proof of incomes could be obtained.
Further, state currencies could not be imposed. If all transactions were private, the state would have no way of knowing what unit of account its subjects may have used to conduct their ... (more)
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Scorsese's Pump and DumpFormer prosecutor Joel Cohen tells the Wall Street Journal the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street" should not have been made. Mr. Cohen believes the mere fact Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed the penny stock hustler glamorizes a criminal who, while very charming, woke up everyday wondering how he could break the law.
One would think any movie that annoys the ex-government prosecutor who took down Jordan Belfort and his firm Stratton Oakmont that much must be worth seeing... (more)
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On Deschooling (1971)Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to acc... (more)
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How the Drug War Makes Drugs Less SafeDesomorphine, a grotesque new drug known on the street as krokodil, has been making news for its increasing popularity as a cheap substitute for heroin, albeit with a devastating range of ill effects of its own. Reports allege that it originated in Siberia in 2002 and has become common in Russia and other Eastern European countries.
The name itself s... (more)
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Why I'm LeavingThis will be the fourth consecutive emigration of the last three generations of my immediate family. My grandparents emigrated from Portugal to Mozambique during the 1940s and 50s in search of a better life. The massive and undeveloped colony seemed like the land of milk and honey for those willing to get their hands dirty. A few decades later my parents-to-be immigrated to South Africa as Mozambique headed towards what would become a 10-year war for independence. Then when I was just 4 years ol... (more)
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It's Not Edward Snowden Who Betrayed UsWhen you cut through the fog, the NSA controversy is about whether we should trust people with institutional power. Edward Snowden's courageous exposure of massive secret surveillance separates those who say yes from those who say, "Hell no!"
The trusting attitude can be found among progressives and conservatives alike (with notable exceptions), and even some who have identified themselves as libertarians. Matt Miller, an occasional guest host on the progressive network MSNBC, lef... (more)
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Necessity: the Argument of TyrantsDespite admitting that the National Security “vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States,” William Pauley, a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, decreed last week that the NSA's dragnet approach is constitutional because, well, he believes that it is necessary.
As W... (more)
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2014 Will Bring More Social Collapse2014 is upon us. For a person who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1961, a year in which the class ring showed the same date right side up or upside down, the 21st century was a science fiction concept associated with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, "20... (more)
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Another Attack on LibertarianismAlternet.org, a liberal (i.e., progressive) website, has published another of its periodic attacks on libertarianism, this time an article entitled "What America Would Look Like If Libertarians Got Their Way?" by R.J. Eskow.
Two things struck me about Eskow's arti... (more)
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Statism As DisempowermentMany statist-leftists in the Global North would probably bristle at the notion that their politics can promote disempowerment amongst marginalised and/or oppressed groups and communities. “On the contrary!” they might say, “My statist proposals will actively counter disempowerment of such groups and communities, by giving them more resources (e.g. financial aid), and preventing discrimination against them (e.g. from employers).”
One can debate the ethics and efficacy of the variou... (more)
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Statism: The World's Deadliest ReligionCountless varieties of idolatry and religious delusion exist, and among them easily the deadliest is the peculiar cult called statism. It is the irrational belief in an invisible, intangible abstraction called the State, in whose name an elite priesthood transubstantiates violence and coercion into justice.
Absent the benign intervention of the State’s priesthood, society would collapse, crops would wither, and the sun would withhold its face from humanity. Any social action under... (more)
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Should Drug-War Victims Pardon the Drug Warriors?From the Huffington Post:
In the holiday spirit of forgiveness, Gov. Jerry Brown announced pardons on Tuesday for 127 people.... Most of the individuals receiving full and unconditional pardons had been convicted of drug-related offenses. Well, isn't that nice? What a good person Jerry Brown is!
Oh, he isn't the only one. President Obama is too. He recently granted clemency to eight drug offenders. Isn't he a good person too?
Have you ... (more)
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A Christmas Gift for My Daughter This article was originally published in December, 2002. A previous version of it was published on December 25, 1966, dedicated to Harry’s then 9-year-old daughter.
It’s Christmas, and I have the usual problem of deciding what to give you. I know you might enjoy many things – books, games, clothes.
But I’m very selfish. I want to give you something that will stay with you for more than a few months or years. I want to give you a gift that m... (more)
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De-criminalize Drugs, Don't "Legalize" ThemUruguay’s national legislature has enacted a measure legalizing marijuana. Citizens of that country will be able to cultivate a half-dozen plants for personal use, or buy marijuana for either medicinal or recreational use from a government-licensed producer through a pharmacy, and will be limited to forty grams a month. It remains illegal to re-sell marijuana to tourists or other non-citizens.
... (more)
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A Government Without SpiesYesterday, a federal judge ruled that the NSA's previously super-secret surveillance scheme over the American people violates the U.S. Constitution, which sets forth the powers and restrictions on power that we the people have established for U.S. officials. Calling the NSA's surveillance scheme "almost Orwellian," Judge Richard Leon's ruling is an amazing one, especially given the long history of the federal judiciary's extreme deference to the national-security state, especially when the two m... (more)
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The 2014 Master Auction and Battered Voter SyndromeRepublican or Democrat? It's a trick question and a faux fight in the political war. Like a circus, it offers distraction from the real problem. The problem is not the face behind the office of power; it is the office of power itself which is unjust and destructive of all that is decent within man and society.
On some level, intelligent people understand this and so they chuckle cynically at jokes like “don't vote, it only encourages them.” Yet the same people will line up at voti... (more)
Related: What If We Had To Vote On The Food We Bought At The Grocery Store?
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